The disability of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) could be significantly reduced if better methods for managing the pain associated with the disease could be found. As is true of other painful chronic diseases, narcotic medication is rarely an effective treatment, with its attendant risks of addiction and mental blurring. Medications which alter the disease process itself offer hope and pain relief of many, but a significant number of patients are still left with high levels of disability produced by their pain. Preliminary studies suggest that behavioral techniques, which have demonstrated their effectiveness in the management of chronic pain due to other causes, may be effective in decreasing pain and its associated disability in patients with RA. Behavioral management of RA pain would have distinct advantages, including minimal or absent side effects, and active engagement of patients in the management of his or her disease, reducing the dependency and, perhaps, the depression frequently associated with RA. This project will study two different types of behavioral strategies for pain management. The first will utilize both EMG and thermal biofeedback training in an attempt to train RA patients to directly modify physiological parameters (skeletal muscle contraction, blood flow) that may be directly associated with the pain mechanisms of RA. The second will attempt to modify the patient's affective reaction to pain by modifying the way patients perceive and evaluate their pain, using various cognitive control strategies. Recognizing the defects of previous studies of behavioral modification of clinical pain in general, and of RA pain in particular, control groups for assessment (waiting list control) and for non-specific treatment (attention/placebo control) will be included, measures of outcome will be multiple and objective as well as subjective, and assessment of outcome will be scheduled at pre-determined intervals.